Examine “Shall do comparison Thee To A Summer Day” In A Literary Concept. Page 478
Kindly read the instruction attached and make reference to it as needed.
The assignment is to do an in depth metaphoric analysis of a literature poem. The book pdf is also attached below but the poem could also be found online.
The Poem “Shall i compare thee to a summer day” is on page 487 of the book.
This page intentionally left blank
Explication
• The Use of Conventional Metaphors for Death in John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” (draft, outline, and fi nal paper) Ch. 30, p. 958
• A Reading of Emily Dickinson’s “There’s a certain Slant of light” Ch. 30, p. 962
Paper-in-Progress
• Explication: The Use of Conventional Metaphors for Death in John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” (draft, outline, and fi nal paper) Ch. 30, p. 958
Research Paper
• How William Faulkner’s Narrator Cultivates a Rose for Emily Ch. 32, p. 987
bedfordstmartins.com/rewritinglit
Check out our free and open visual tutorials, reference materials, and support for working with sources.
• VirtuaLit Tutorials for close reading
• AuthorLinks for research
• LitGloss for literary terms
• LitQuizzes for self-testing
• Sample Papers for MLA-style models
• Research and Documentation Online for research
• The Bedford Bibliographer for research
bedfordstmartins.com/videolit
Explore our growing collection of video interviews with today’s writers — on what they read, where they get their ideas, and how they refi ne their craft. Featured authors include T. C. Boyle, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Ha Jin, and Anne Rice.
This page intentionally left blank
Literature to Go
This page intentionally left blank
Literature to Go
MICHAEL MEYER University of Connecticut
BEDFORD / ST. MARTIN’S BOSTON ◆ NEW YORK
For Bedford/St. Martin’s
Executive Editor: Ellen Thibault Developmental Editor: Christina Gerogiannis Production Editor: Lindsay DiGianvittorio Production Supervisor: Jennifer Peterson Senior Marketing Manager: Adrienne Petsick Editorial Assistants: Sophia Snyder, Mallory Moore Production Assistant: Alexis Biasell Copyeditor: Hilly van Loon Senior Art Director: Anna Palchik Text Design: Claire Seng-Niemoeller Cover Design: Donna Lee Dennison Cover Art: Wisconsin and N Street, by Joseph Craig English. Used with permission. Original
illustration altered with permission of the artist. Composition: Glyph International Printing and Binding: Quad/Graphics Taunton
President: Joan E. Feinberg Editorial Director: Denise B. Wydra Editor in Chief: Karen S. Henry Director of Marketing: Karen R. Soeltz Director of Editing, Design, and Production: Susan W. Brown Assistant Director of Editing, Design, and Production: Elise S. Kaiser Managing Editor: Elizabeth M. Schaaf
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2010928943
Copyright © 2011 by Bedford/St. Martin’s
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as may be expressly permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in writing by the Publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
4 3 2 1 0 e d c b a
For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 (617-399-4000)
ISBN 10: 0–312–62412–3 ISBN 13: 978–0–312–62412–5
Acknowledgments
fiction T. Coraghessan Boyle. “Carnal Knowledge” from Without a Hero by T. Coraghessan Boyle.
Copyright © 1994 by T. Coraghessan Boyle. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
A. S. Byatt. “Baglady” from Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice by Antonia Byatt. Reprinted by permission of SLL/Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. Copyright by Peters Fraser & Dunlop A/A/F Antonia Byatt.
Raymond Carver. “Popular Mechanics” from What We Talk about When We Talk about Love by Raymond Carver. Copyright © 1974, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981 by Raymond Carver. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
Acknowledgments and copyrights are continued at the back of the book on pages 1013–18, which constitute an extension of the copyright page. It is a violation of the law to reproduce these selections by any means whatsoever without the written permission of the copyright holder.
For My Wife Regina Barreca
About Michael Meyer
Michael Meyer has taught writing and literature courses for more than thirty years — since 1981 at the University of Connecticut and before that at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the College of Wil- liam and Mary. In addition to being an experienced teacher, Meyer is a highly regarded literary scholar. His scholarly articles have appeared in distinguished journals such as American Literature, Studies in the American Renaissance, and Virginia Quarterly Review. An internationally recognized authority on Henry David Thoreau, Meyer is a former president of the Thoreau Society and coauthor (with Walter Harding) of The New Thoreau Handbook, a standard reference source. His fi rst book, Several More Lives to Live: Thoreau’s Political Reputation in America, was awarded the Ralph Henry Gabriel Prize by the American Studies Association. He is also the editor of Frederick Douglass: The Narrative and Selected Writings. He has lectured on a variety of American literary topics from Cambridge University to Peking University. His other books for Bedford/St. Martin’s include The Bedford Introduction to Literature, Ninth Edition; The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, Eighth Edition; Poetry: An Introduction, Sixth Edition; and Think- ing and Writing about Literature, Second Edition.
Preface for Instructors
Literature to Go is the long-trusted anthology, The Bedford Introduction to Literature, sized and priced to go. Created in response to instructors’ re- quests for an essential version of the full-length book — with a selection of literature that refl ects the classic canon and the new — Literature to Go is a brief and inexpensive collection of stories, poems, and plays, supported by class-tested, reliable pedagogy and unique features that bring literature to life for students. The hope is that the engaging selections and accessible instruction in Literature to Go will inspire students to become lifelong read- ers of imaginative literature, as well as more thoughtful and skillful writers. The text is designed to accommodate many different teaching styles and is fl exibly organized into four parts focusing on fi ction, poetry, drama, and critical thinking and writing. Creative chapters on the elements of litera- ture appear at the beginning of each genre section and cover such concepts as character, setting, confl ict, and tone, along with plenty of examples. Addi- tionally, case studies on major authors, including Flannery O’Connor and William Shakespeare, reveal writers as real people and literature as a living art form. And a unique, in-depth chapter on poet Billy Collins, created in collaboration with the poet himself, gives students an intimate look into the creative process of one of America’s most popular contemporary poets. In addition to offering literature from many periods, cultures, and diverse voices, including today’s wittiest writers, the book is also a surpris- ingly complete guide to close reading, critical thinking, and thoughtful writ- ing. Following the genre sections, the fourth part of Literature to Go provides detailed instruction on these crucial skills. Sample student papers and hun- dreds of assignments appear in the text, giving students the support they need. And two new online resources — Re:Writing for Literature, with lots of help for reading and writing about literature; and VideoCentral: Literature, a growing collection of exclusive interviews with today’s authors — offer even more options for teaching, learning, and enjoying literature.
FEATURES OF L ITER ATURE TO GO A wide and well-balanced selection of literature — sized and priced to go
34 stories, 202 poems, and 12 plays represent a variety of periods, nation- alities, cultures, styles, and voices — from the serious to the humorous, and from the traditional to the contemporary. Each selection has been
vii
viii preface for instructors
chosen for its appeal to students and for its effectiveness in demonstrat- ing the elements, signifi cance, and pleasures of literature. Canonical works by Ernest Hemingway, John Keats, Susan Glas pell, and many others are generously represented. In addition, there are many contemporary selections from writers such as Nilaja Sun, Ian McEwan, and Tim O’Brien, as well as a rich sampling of works by writers from other cultures. These selections ap pear throughout the anthology.
Many options for teaching and learning about literature
In an effort to make literature come to life for students, and the course a plea- sure to teach for instructors, Literature to Go offers these innovative features:
Perspectives on literature Intriguing documents — including critical essays, interviews, and contextual images — appear throughout the book to stimulate class discussion and writing.
Connections between “popular” and “literary” culture The poetry and drama introductions incorporate examples from popular culture, effectively introducing students to the literary elements of a given genre through what
they already know. For example, students are introduced to the elements of poetry through greeting card verse and song lyrics by Bruce Springsteen and to elements of drama through a television script from Seinfeld. Lively visuals throughout the anthology present images that demonstrate how literature is woven into the fabric of popular culture and art. These images help students recognize the imprint of literature on their everyday lives.
Case studies that treat authors in depth Each genre section includes a chapter that focuses closely on a major literary fi gure. Chapters on Flannery O’Connor, Billy Collins, and William Shakespeare are complemented by biographi- cal introductions (with author photographs),
critical perspectives, cultural documents (such as letters and draft manuscript pages), and images that serve to con- textualize the works. A vari- ety of critical thinking and writing questions follow the selections to stim ulate stu- dent responses. All these sup- plementary materials engage
From Chapter 9: “A Study of Flannery O’Connor.”
preface for instructors ix
students more fully with the writers and their works.
An in-depth chapter on Billy Collins — created with Billy Collins
Collins presents fi ve of his own poems in Chapter 20 alongside his own insights — written specifi cally for Michael Meyer’s anthologies — into each work, and shares photographs and pages from his notebooks. This case study reinforces Meyer’s empha- sis on poetry as a living, changing art form. Students will enjoy the oppor- tunity to have a major poet speak directly to them, in Collins’s one-of-a- kind style, about how he writes, why he writes, and the kinds of surprises that occur along the way.
Plenty of help with reading, writing, and research
Critical reading* Advice on how to read literature ap pears at the begin- ning of each genre section. Sample Close Readings of selections, in cluding Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” (Fiction), William Hathaway’s “Oh, Oh” (Poetry), and Susan Glas pell’s Trifl es (Drama), provide analyses of the language, images, and other literary elements at work in these selections. Interpretive an notations clearly show students the pro cess of close reading and provide examples of the kind of critical thinking that leads to strong academic writing. Later in the book, Chapter 28, “Reading and the Writing Process,” provides more instruction on how to read a work closely, annotate a text, take notes, keep a reading journal, and develop a topic into a the- sis, with a section on arguing persuasively about literature. An Index of Terms appears at the back of the book, and a glossary provides thorough explanations of more than two hundred terms central to the study of literature.
Kate Chopin (1851–1904)
The Story of an Hour 1894
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sen- tences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her hus- band’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the rail- road disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name lead- ing the list of “killed.” He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
Sh did h h h h d h
The title could point to the brevity of the story — only 23 short paragraphs — or to the decisive nature of what happens in a very short period of time. Or both.
Mrs. Mallard’s first name, (Louise) is not given until paragraph 17, yet her sister Josephine is named immediately. This em- phasizes Mrs. Mal- lard’s married identity.
Given the nature of the cause of Mrs. Mallard death at the story’s end, it’s worth noting the ambiguous description that she “was afflicted with a heart trouble.” Is this one of Chopin’s
A Sample Close Reading
From Chapter 20, “A Study of Billy Collins: The Author Refl ects on Five Poems.”
*A reference chart on the book’s inside front cover outlines all of the book’s help for reading and writing about literature.
x preface for instructors
The writing and research process Five chapters (28–32) cover every step of the writing pro cess — from generating topics to documenting sources — while sample student papers model the results. Of these chapters, three — “Writing about Fiction” (29), “Writing about Poetry” (30), and “Writing about Drama” (31) — focus on genre-specifi c writing assignments. Six sample student papers — all with MLA-style documentation — model how to analyze and argue about literature and how to support ideas by citing examples. The papers are integrated throughout the book, as are “Questions for Writing” units that guide students through par- ticular writing tasks: reading and writing responsively, developing a topic into a revised thesis, and writing about multiple works by an author. Chapter 32, “The Literary Research Paper,” offers detailed advice for fi nding, evaluating, and incorporating sources in a paper and includes current, detailed MLA documentation guidelines.
Questions for critical reading and writing Hundreds of questions and assignments — “Considerations for Critical Thinking and Writing,” “Connections to Other Selections,” “First Response” prompts, and “Cre- ative Re sponse” assignments — spark students’ interest, sharpen their thinking, and improve their reading, discussion, and writing skills.
Literature to Go e-Book: The fi rst electronic anthology for literature
Bedford/St. Martin’s is pleased to introduce the Literature to Go e-Book, the fi rst electronic anthology for the literature course. Are you moving away from print books? Or perhaps want to supplement your course with digital material? The e-Book for Literature to Go includes all of the print book’s instruction and nearly all of the literature. It’s easy to use, environmentally sound, and nicely priced.
• To order the e-Book, packaged for fi ve dollars with the student edition of the print book, use package ISBN-10: 0-312-55777-9 or ISBN-13: 978-0-312-55777-5.
Bonnie Katz
Professor Quiello
English 109–2
October 26, 2010
A Reading of Emily Dickinson’s
“There’s a certain Slant of light”
Because Emily Dickinson did not provide titles for her poetry, editors
follow the customary practice of using the first line of a poem as its title.
However, a more appropriate title for “There’s a certain Slant of light,” one
that suggests what the speaker in the poem is most concerned about, can be
drawn from the poem’s last line, which ends with “the look of Death” (Dickin-
son, line 16). Although the first line begins with an image of light, nothing
bright, carefree, or cheerful appears in the poem. Instead, the predominant
mood and images are darkened by a sense of despair resulting from the
speaker’s awareness of death.
In the first stanza, the “certain Slant of light” is associated with “Win-
ter Afternoons” (2), a phrase that connotes the end of a day, a season, and
even life itself. Such light is hardly warm or comforting. Not a ray or beam,
this slanting light suggests something unusual or distorted and creates in the
speaker a certain slant on life that is consistent with the cold, dark mood that
winter afternoons can produce. Like the speaker, most of us have seen and felt
this sort of light: it “oppresses” (3) and pervades our sense of things when we
encounter it. Dickinson uses the senses of hearing and touch as well as sight
to describe the overwhelming oppressiveness that the speaker experiences.
The light is transformed into sound by a simile that tells us it is “like the Heft
/ Of Cathedral Tunes” (3–4). Moreover, the “Heft” of that sound — the slow,
solemn measures of tolling church bells and organ music–weighs heavily on
our spirits. Through the use of shifting imagery, Dickinson evokes a kind of
spiritual numbness that we keenly feel and perceive through our senses.
By associating the winter light with “Cathedral Tunes,” Dickinson lets
us know that the speaker is concerned about more than the weather. What-
ever it is that “oppresses” is related by connotation to faith, mortality, and
Katz 1
Thesis providing overview of explication
Line-by-line explication of first stanza, focusing on connotations of words and imagery, in relation to mood and meaning of poem as a whole; supported with refer- ences to the text
A sample student explication on Emily Dickinson’s “There’s a certain Slant of light” includes parenthetical citations and a Works Cited page.
preface for instructors xi
• To purchase the e-Book as a standalone item (without the print book), use ISBN-10: 0-312-55242-4 or ISBN-13: 978-0-312-55242-8.
• To order the e-Book in CourseSmart format (as a PDF), use ISBN- 10: 0-312-55240-8 or ISBN-13: 978-0-312-55240-4.
YOU GET MORE DIGITAL CHOICES FOR LITER ATURE TO GO Literature to Go doesn’t stop with a book. Online, you’ll fi nd plenty of free and open resources to help students get even more out of the book and your course. You’ll also fi nd convenient instructor resources, and even a nationwide community of teachers. To learn more about or order any of the products below, contact your Bedford/St. Martin’s sales representative, e-mail sales support (sales_support@bfwpub .com), or visit the Web site at bedfordstmartins.com/meyertogo/ catalog.
xii preface for instructors
New! Re:Writing for Literature: Free and open resources
Send students to our best free and open resources (no codes required), or upgrade to an expanding collection of premium digital resources at bedfordstmartins.com/rewritinglit.
Students will fi nd easy-to-access visual tutorials, reference materials, and support for working with sources.
• VirtuaLit Tutorials for Close Reading (Fiction, Poetry, and Drama) • AuthorLinks and Biographies • Quizzes on Literary Works • A Glossary of Literary Terms • MLA-style sample student papers • Help for fi nding and citing sources, including Diana Hacker’s
Research and Documentation Online
New! VideoCentral: Literature: Interviews with today’s writers
VideoCentral: Literature — a Bedford/St. Martin’s production created with writer and teacher Peter Berkow — is a growing collection of more than fi fty video interviews with today’s writers, talking about their craft. Your students can hear from Ha Jin on how he uses humor and tension in his writing, Anne Rice on how she advances plot through dialogue, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni on how she writes from experience, and T. C. Boyle on how he creates memorable voices. Related assignments and activities
preface for instructors xiii
help students get the most out of these instructive videos and apply what they learn to their own thinking and writing.
To package VideoCentral: Litera- ture, free with student copies of Literature to Go, use pack- age ISBN-10: 0-312-54620-3 or ISBN-13: 978-0-312-54620-5.
Instructor Resources: bedfordstmartins.com/ meyertogo/catalog
You have a lot to do in your course. Bedford/St. Martin’s wants to make it easy for you to fi nd the support you need — and to get it quickly.
Resources for Teaching Literature to Go is available as a print manual or as a PDF that can be downloaded from the Bedford/St. Martin’s online catalog. This manual supports every selection in the book and has something to offer new and experienced instructors. Resources include commentary, biographical information, additional writing assign- ments, further connections among the selections, and tips from instruc- tors who have taught with Michael Meyer’s anthologies. For the PDF, go to bedfordstmartins.com/meyertogo/catalog. To order the print edition, use ISBN-10: 0-312-66697-7 or ISBN-13: 978-0-312-66697-2.
Teaching Central offers the entire list of Bedford/St. Martin’s print and online professional resources in one place. You’ll fi nd landmark refer- ence works, sourcebooks on pedagogical issues, award-winning collec- tions, and practical advice for the classroom — all free for instructors and available through the Student Center or at bedfordstmartins.com/ meyertogo/catalog.
Literature Aloud is a two-CD set of audio recordings featuring celebrated writers and actors reading stories, poems, and selected scenes included in Michael Meyer’s anthologies. This resource is free to instructors who adopt Literature to Go. To order the CD set, use ISBN-10: 0-312-43011-6 or ISBN-13: 978-0-312-43011-5.
The Bedford/St. Martin’s Video & DVD Library offers selected videos and DVDs of plays and stories included in Literature to Go, and is avail- able to qualifi ed adopters of the anthology. To learn more, contact your Bedford/St. Martin’s sales representative or e-mail sales support (sales_ support@bfwpub.com).
xiv preface for instructors
Literary Reprints Titles in the Case Studies in Contemporary Criti- cism series, Bedford Cultural Edition series, and the Bedford Shake- speare series can be shrink-wrapped with Literature to Go for instructors who want to teach longer works in conjunction with the anthology. (For a complete list of available titles, visit bedfordstmartins.com/ meyertogo/catalog.)
TradeUp
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book has benefi ted from the ideas, suggestions, and corrections of scores of careful readers who helped transform various stages of an evolv- ing manuscript into a fi nished book and into subsequent editions. I remain grateful to those I have thanked in previous prefaces, particularly the late Robert Wallace of Case Western Reserve University. In addition, many instructors who used the eighth edition of The Bedford Introduction to Literature responded to a questionnaire for the book. For their valuable comments and advice I am grateful to Sandra Allen-Kearney, Lincoln Park Academy; Jon W. Brooks, Okaloosa-Walton College; David Brumbley, Salisbury University; Robert Caughey, Torrey Pines High School; S. Elaine Craghead, Massachusetts Maritime Academy; Robert W. Croft, Gaines- ville State College; Allen Culpepper, Manatee Community College; Samir Dayal, Bentley College; Cheryl DeLacretaz, Dripping Springs High School; Janice Forgione, Salisbury University; Bernadette Gambino, University of North Florida; Sinceree Renee Gunn, University of Alabama in Hunts- ville; Cathy Henrichs, Pikes Peak Community College; Susan Hopkirk,
TradeUp Get 50% off all trade titles when packaged with your textbook!
Add more value and choice to your students’ learning experiences by packaging their Bedford / St. Martin’s textbook with one of a thousand titles from our sister publishers such as Farrar, Straus and Giroux and St. Martin’s Press — at a discount of 50% off the regular price.
preface for instructors xv
Middle Tennessee State University; Mary Lee Stephenson Huffer, Lake Sumter Community College; Michelle Green Jimmerson, Louisiana Tech University; Sharon Johnston, Spokane Virtual Learning/Spokane Public Schools; Tamara Kuzmenkov, Tacoma Community College; Catherine Shanon Lawson, Pikes Peak Community College; Manuel Martinez, Santa Fe Community College; Sarah McIntosh, Santa Fe Community College; Jim McKeown, McLennan Community College; Julie Moore, Green River Community College; Larry Moss, Young Men’s Academy for Academic and Civic Development at MacArthur South; Angelina Northrip-Rivera, Missouri State University; David Pink, Rock Valley College; Deidre D. Price, Okaloosa-Walton College; Katharine Purcell, Trident Technical Col- lege; Karin Russell, Keiser University; Holly Schoenecker, Milwaukee Area Technical College; Beth Shelton, Paris Junior College; Karen Stewart, Norwich University; John A. Stoler, University of Texas at San Antonio; James D. Suderman, Okaloosa-Walton College; Becky Talk; Gregory J. Underwood, Pearl River Community College — Forrest County Center; and Marva Webb, Clinton High School. I would also like to give special thanks to the following instructors who contributed teaching tips to Resources for Teaching Literature to Go: Sandra Adickes, Winona State University; Helen J. Aling, Northwestern College; Sr. Anne Denise Brenann, College of Mt. St. Vincent; Robin Calitri, Merced College; James H. Clemmer, Austin Peay State University; Robert Croft, Gainesville College; Thomas Edwards, Westbrook College; Elizabeth Kleinfeld, Red Rocks Community College; Olga Lyles, Uni- versity of Nevada; Timothy Peters, Boston University; Catherine Rusco, Muskegon Community College; Robert M. St. John, DePaul University; Richard Stoner, Broome Community College; Nancy Veiga, Modesto Junior College; Karla Walters, University of New Mexico; and Joseph Zeppetello, Ulster Community College. I am also indebted to those who cheerfully answered questions and generously provided miscellaneous bits of information. What might have seemed to them like inconsequential conversations turned out to be important leads. Among these friends and colleagues are Raymond Anselment, Barbara Campbell, Ann Charters, Karen Chow, John Chris- tie, Eleni Coundouriotis, Irving Cummings, William Curtin, Patrick Hogan, Lee Jacobus, Thomas Jambeck, Bonnie Januszewski-Ytuarte, Greta Little, George Monteiro, Brenda Murphy, Joel Myerson, Rose Qui- ello, Thomas Recchio, William Sheidley, Stephanie Smith, Milton Stern, Kenneth Wilson, and the dedicated reference librarians at the Homer Babbidge Library, University of Connecticut. I am particularly happy to acknowledge the tactful help of Roxanne Cody, owner of R. J. Julia Book- sellers in Madison, Connecticut, whose passion for books authorizes her as the consummate matchmaker for writers, readers, and titles. It’s a wonder that somebody doesn’t call the cops. I continue to be grateful for what I have learned from teaching my students and for the many student papers I have received over the years
xvi preface for instructors
that I have used in various forms to serve as good and accessible mod- els of student writing. I am also indebted to Stefanie Wortman for her extensive work on Resources for Teaching literature to go. At Bedford/St. Martin’s, my debts once again require more time to ack- nowledge than the deadline allows. Charles H. Christensen and Joan E. Feinberg initiated The Bedford Introduction to Literature and launched it with their intelligence, energy, and sound advice. This book has also ben- efi ted from the savvy insights of Denise Wydra and Steve Scipione. Ear- lier editions were shaped by editors Karen Henry, Kathy Retan, Alanya Harter, Aron Keesbury, and Ellen Thibault; their work was as fi rst rate as it was essential. As development editor for Literature to Go, Christina Gerogiannis expertly kept the book on track and made the journey a pleasure to the end; her valuable contributions richly remind me of how fortunate I am to be a Bedford/St. Martin’s author. Stephanie Naudin, associate editor, energetically developed the book’s instructor’s manual, and Sophia Snyder, editorial assistant, gracefully handled a variety of editorial tasks. Permissions were deftly arranged by Kalina Hintz, Arthur Johnson, Martha Friedman, and Susan Doheny. The diffi cult tasks of production were skillfully managed by Lindsay DiGianvittorio, whose attention to details and deadlines was essential to the completion of this project. Hilly van Loon provided careful copyediting, and Laura Dewey and Arthur Johnson did meticulous proofreading. I thank all of the people at Bedford/St. Martin’s — including Donna Dennison, who designed the cover, and Adrienne Petsick, the marketing manager — who helped to make this formidable project a manageable one. Finally, I am grateful to my sons Timothy and Matthew for all kinds of help, but mostly I’m just grateful they’re my sons. And for making all the difference, I thank my wife, Regina Barreca.
Brief Contents
Resources for Reading and Writing about Literature inside front cover
Preface for Instructors vii
Introduction: Reading Imaginative Literature 1
FICT ION 7
The Elements of Fiction 9 1. Reading Fiction 11 2. Plot 44 3. Character 64 4. Setting 115 5. Point of View 135 6. Symbolism 178 7. Theme 199 8. Style, Tone, and Irony 223
Fiction in Depth 255 9. A Study of Flannery O’Connor 257
A Collection of Stories 277 10. Stories for Further Reading 279
POETRY 339
The Elements of Poetry 341 11. Reading Poetry 343 12. Word Choice, Word Order, and Tone 375 13. Images 399 14. Figures of Speech 412 15. Symbol, Allegory, and Irony 428
xvii
xviii brief contents
- Sounds 447 17. Patterns of Rhythm 464 18. Poetic Forms 481 19. Open Form 507
Poetry in Depth 523 20. A Study of Billy Collins: The Author Refl ects on Five Poems 525 21. A Thematic Case Study: Humor and Satire 550
A Collection of Poems 559 22. Poems for Further Reading 561
DR AMA 589
The Study of Drama 591 23. Reading Drama 593 24. Sophocles and Greek Drama 632 25. William Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama 687 26. Henrik Ibsen and Modern Drama 788
A Collection of Plays 849 27. Plays for Further Reading 851
CRIT ICAL THINKING AND WRIT ING 927
- Reading and the Writing Process 929 29. Writing about Fiction 942 30. Writing about Poetry 950 31. Writing about Drama 965 32. The Literary Research Paper 973
Glossary of Literary Terms 991
Index of First Lines 1019
Index of Authors and Titles 1023
Index of Terms 1034
Contents
Resources for Reading and Writing about Literature inside front cover
Preface for Instructors vii
Introduction: Reading Imaginative Literature 1 The Nature of Literature 1
Emily Dickinson • A NARROW FELLOW IN THE GRASS 2
The Value of Literature 3 The Changing Literary Canon 5
FICT ION 7
The Elements of Fiction 9
- Reading Fiction 11 Reading Fiction Responsively 11
Kate Chopin • THE STORY OF AN HOUR 13 A young woman reacts to news of her husband’s death. “She had loved him — sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter!”
a sample close reading An Annotated Section of Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” 15 a sample student paper Differences in Responses to Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” 18
Explorations and Formulas 22 A Comparison of Two Stories 28
Karen van der Zee • FROM A SECRET SORROW 28 “Shut up and listen to me! . . . He was still breathing hard and he looked at her with stormy blue eyes.” A young couple debates their future, Harlequin romance style.
Gail Godwin • A SORROWFUL WOMAN 37 What happens when you’re a wife and mother — but it turns out that’s not what you really wanted?
xix
xx contents
- Plot 44 Edgar Rice Burroughs • FROM TARZAN OF THE APES 46 Two wild creatures battle over a woman. “Against the long canines of the ape was pitted the thin blade of the man’s knife.”
Alice Walker • THE FLOWERS 53 A young girl gathers fl owers, farther from home than usual. “It seemed gloomy in the little cove. . . . The air was damp, the silence close and deep.”
William Faulkner • A ROSE FOR EMILY 55 In a tale that Faulkner called a ghost story, a woman breaks from traditions of the old South — mysteriously and gruesomely.
- Character 64 Charles Dickens • FROM HARD TIMES 65 “Facts alone are wanted in life.” No one can take the joy out of learning like Dickens’s Mr. Gradgrind.
May-lee Chai • SAVING SOURDI 69 In the Killing Fields of Cambodia, Sourdi saves her sister Nea. Now in the U.S., Nea wants to save her sister’s happiness.
Herman Melville • BARTLEBY, THE SCRIVENER 85 “I would prefer not to.” The classic story of the most resistant offi ce worker in literature.
- Setting 115 Ernest Hemingway • SOLDIER’S HOME 117 A young man comes home from war, detached from emotion and the values of those who want him to make something of himself.
Fay Weldon • IND AFF, OR OUT OF LOVE IN SARAJEVO 124 “I love you with inordinate affection!” A graduate student and her married professor travel to the Balkans to make a decision.
A. S. Byatt • BAGLADY 131 A morning of shopping in a luxurious mall in the Far East does not go well for Daphne Gulver-Robinson.
- Point of View 135 Third-Person Narrator 136 First-Person Narrator 137
Anton Chekhov • THE LADY WITH THE PET DOG 139 “Anna Sergeyevna and he loved each other. . . . Fate itself had meant them for one another, and they could not understand why he had a wife and she a husband.”
Alice Munro • AN OUNCE OF CURE 168 A teenage girl’s fi rst experience with a broken heart leads to catastrophic consequences.
contents xxi
- Symbolism 178
Ralph Ellison • BATTLE ROYAL 184 A young black man is humiliated, bloodied, and awarded a scholarship as he sets out on a path toward identity and equality in a racist society.
Peter Meinke • THE CRANES 196 People make many promises to the ones they love. Sometimes, there is no turning back.
- Theme 199 Guy de Maupassant • THE NECKLACE 202 All Mathilde Loisel wants is a pretty necklace for the ball. When she borrows one from a friend, however, things do not go as expected.
Stephen Crane • THE BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY 209 In this commentary on the Wild West, things change with the marriage of the lone marshal of a gunslinging town.
Dagoberto Gilb • LOVE IN L.A. 219 A man driving an unregistered, uninsured ’58 Buick dreams and deceives on the Hollywood Freeway.
- Style, Tone, and Irony 223 Style 223 Tone 225 Irony 225
Raymond Carver • POPULAR MECHANICS 227 With extreme economy, Carver tells the story of a troubled family’s tug-of-war.
Susan Minot • LUST 229 “The more girls a boy has, the better. . . . For a girl, with each boy it’s as though a petal gets plucked each time.” A woman chronicles her early sexual encounters.
T. Coraghessan Boyle • CARNAL KNOWLEDGE 237 How far will a man go for love? “The turkeys must have sensed that something was up — from behind the long white windowless wall, there arose a watchful gabbling.”
Fiction in Depth 255
- A Study of Flannery O’Connor 257 A Brief Biography and Introduction 258
Flannery O’Connor • A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND 261 A southern grandmother weighs in on the “goodness” of one of literature’s most famous ex-convicts.
xxii contents
perspectives on o’connor Flannery O’Connor • On the Use of Exaggeration and Distortion 274 Josephine Hendin • On O’Connor’s Refusal to “Do Pretty” 274 Claire Katz • The Function of Violence in O’Connor’s Fiction 275 Time Magazine • On A Good Man Is Hard to Find 276
A Collection of Stories 277
- Stories for Further Reading 279 Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni • CLOTHES 280 A young Indian woman sees her marriage, her move to America, and even her wardrobe (and a California 7-Eleven) in terms of possibility.
Nathaniel Hawthorne • THE BIRTHMARK 289 An eighteenth-century scientist seeks to obliterate imperfection.
James Joyce • EVELINE 302 How much should an obedient daughter sacrifi ce to fulfi ll her duty to her family and home?
Jamaica Kincaid • GIRL 306 “Always eat your food in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach.” A critical mother subjects her daughter to a long list of advice.
Ian McEwan • THE USE OF POETRY 308 When a science major meets a beautiful English student, he decides poetry might have some use after all.
Tim O’Brien • HOW TO TELL A TRUE WAR STORY 318 “If a story seems moral, do not believe it. . . . You can tell a true war story by its abso- lute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.”
E. Annie Proulx • 55 MILES TO THE GAS PUMP 329 A brief, startling story of a rancher and his wife.
Mark Twain • THE STORY OF THE GOOD LITTLE BOY 330 Obedience is not exactly celebrated in this story about being too good.
John Updike • A & P 334 “In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits.” A teenaged Sammy makes a gallant move that changes his life.
POETRY 339
The Elements of Poetry 341
- Reading Poetry 343 Reading Poetry Responsively 343
Lisa Parker • SNAPPING BEANS 344
Robert Hayden • THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS 345
John Updike • DOG’S DEATH 346
contents xxiii
The Pleasure of Words 347 William Hathaway • OH, OH 348
a sample close reading An Annotated Version of William Hathaway’s “Oh, Oh” 348
Robert Francis • CATCH 350 a sample student analysis Tossing Metaphors Together in Robert Francis’s “Catch” 351
Elizabeth Bishop • THE FISH 355
Philip Larkin • A STUDY OF READING HABITS 357
Robert Morgan • MOUNTAIN GRAVEYARD 358
E. E. Cummings • l(a 359
Anonymous • WESTERN WIND 360
Regina Barreca • NIGHTTIME FIRES 361 suggestions for approaching poetry 362
Billy Collins • INTRODUCTION TO POETRY 364
Poetry in Popular Forms 364 Helen Farries • MAGIC OF LOVE 366
John Frederick Nims • LOVE POEM 366
Bruce Springsteen • YOU’RE MISSING 368
Poems for Further Study 369 Alberto Ríos • SENIORS 369
Li Ho • A BEAUTIFUL GIRL COMBS HER HAIR 370
Peter Pereira • ANAGRAMMER 371
Robert Frost • DESIGN 372
Mary Oliver • THE POET WITH HIS FACE IN HIS HANDS 373
- Word Choice, Word Order, and Tone 375 Word Choice 375
Diction 375
Denotations and Connotations 377
Randall Jarrell • THE DEATH OF THE BALL TURRET GUNNER 378
Word Order 380 Tone 380
Katharyn Howd Machan • HAZEL TELLS LAVERNE 380
Martín Espada • LATIN NIGHT AT THE PAWNSHOP 381
Paul Laurence Dunbar • TO A CAPTIOUS CRITIC 382
Diction and Tone in Four Love Poems 382 Robert Herrick • TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME 383
Andrew Marvell • TO HIS COY MISTRESS 384
xxiv contents
Ann Lauinger • MARVELL NOIR 387
Sharon Olds • LAST NIGHT 388
Poems for Further Study 389 Thomas Hardy • THE CONVERGENCE OF THE TWAIN 389
David R. Slavitt • TITANIC 391
Gwendolyn Brooks • WE REAL COOL 391
Joan Murray • WE OLD DUDES 392
Louis Simpson • IN THE SUBURBS 393
Emily Dickinson • SOME KEEP THE SABBATH GOING TO CHURCH — 393
John Keats • ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 394
Poets at Play 396 Billy Collins • TAKING OFF EMILY DICKINSON’S CLOTHES 396
Joan Murray • TAKING OFF BILLY COLLINS’ CLOTHES 397
postcard: Billy Collins • TO JOAN MURRAY 398
- Images 399 Poetry’s Appeal to the Senses 399
William Carlos Williams • POEM 400
Walt Whitman • CAVALRY CROSSING A FORD 400
Theodore Roethke • ROOT CELLAR 401
Matthew Arnold • DOVER BEACH 402
Jimmy Santiago Baca • GREEN CHILE 404
Poems for Further Study 405 Amy Lowell • THE POND 405
William Blake • LONDON 405
Emily Dickinson • WILD NIGHTS — WILD NIGHTS! 406
Wilfred Owen • DULCE ET DECORUM EST 407
Sally Croft • HOME-BAKED BREAD 408
John Keats • TO AUTUMN 409
Ezra Pound • IN A STATION OF THE METRO 411
- Figures of Speech 412 William Shakespeare • FROM MACBETH (ACT V, SCENE V ) 413
Simile and Metaphor 414 Margaret Atwood • YOU FIT INTO ME 414
Emily Dickinson • PRESENTIMENT — IS THAT LONG SHADOW — ON THE LAWN — 415
contents xxv
Other Figures 416 Edmund Conti • PRAGMATIST 416
Dylan Thomas • THE HAND THAT SIGNED THE PAPER 417
Janice Townley Moore • TO A WASP 418
J. Patrick Lewis • THE UNKINDEST CUT 420
Poems for Further Study 420 Gary Snyder • HOW POETRY COMES TO ME 420
Ernest Slyman • LIGHTNING BUGS 421
Judy Page Heitzman • THE SCHOOLROOM ON THE SECOND FLOOR OF THE KNITTING MILL 421
William Wordsworth • LONDON, 1802 422
Robert Frost • FIRE AND ICE 423
John Donne • A VALEDICTION: FORBIDDING MOURNING 423
Linda Pastan • MARKS 425
Kay Ryan • HAILSTORM 425
Elaine Magarrell • THE JOY OF COOKING 426
- Symbol, Allegory, and Irony 428 Symbol 428
Robert Frost • ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT 429
Allegory 431 Edgar Allan Poe • THE HAUNTED PALACE 431
Irony 433 Edwin Arlington Robinson • RICHARD CORY 433
Kenneth Fearing • AD 434
E. E. Cummings • NEXT TO OF COURSE GOD AMERICA I 435
Stephen Crane • A MAN SAID TO THE UNIVERSE 436
Poems for Further Study 437 Bob Hicok • MAKING IT IN POETRY 437
Kevin Pierce • PROOF OF ORIGIN 437
Carl Sandburg • BUTTONS 438
Wallace Stevens • ANECDOTE OF THE JAR 438
Jim Tilley • RICHTER 7.8 439
William Stafford • TRAVELING THROUGH THE DARK 440
Alden Nowlan • THE BULL MOOSE 441
Julio Marzán • ETHNIC POETRY 442
James Merrill • CASUAL WEAR 443
xxvi contents
Robert Browning • MY LAST DUCHESS 444
William Blake • THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER 445
- Sounds 447 Listening to Poetry 447
John Updike • PLAYER PIANO 448
May Swenson • A NOSTY FRIGHT 449
Emily Dickinson • A BIRD CAME DOWN THE WALK — 450
Galway Kinnell • BLACKBERRY EATING 452
Rhyme 453 Richard Armour • GOING TO EXTREMES 453
Robert Southey • FROM “THE CATARACT OF LODORE” 454
Sound and Meaning 457 Gerard Manley Hopkins • GOD’S GRANDEUR 457
Poems for Further Study 458 Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) • JABBERWOCKY 458
Emily Dickinson • I HEARD A FLY BUZZ — WHEN I DIED — 459
Robert Frost • STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING 460
John Donne • SONG 461
Paul Humphrey • BLOW 462
Robert Francis • THE PITCHER 462
Helen Chasin • THE WORD PLUM 463
- Patterns of Rhythm 464 Some Principles of Meter 464
Walt Whitman • FROM “SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD” 465
William Wordsworth • MY HEART LEAPS UP 468 suggestions for scanning a poem 469
Timothy Steele • WAITING FOR THE STORM 470
William Butler Yeats • THAT THE NIGHT COME 470
Poems for Further Study 471 Alfred, Lord Tennyson • BREAK, BREAK, BREAK 471
Alice Jones • THE FOOT 472
Rita Dove • FOX TROT FRIDAYS 473
Robert Herrick • DELIGHT IN DISORDER 474
Ben Jonson • STILL TO BE NEAT 474
William Blake • THE LAMB 475
William Blake • THE TYGER 476
contents xxvii
Carl Sandburg • CHICAGO 477
Robert Frost • “OUT, OUT — ” 478
Theodore Roethke • MY PAPA’S WALTZ 479
- Poetic Forms 481 Some Common Poetic Forms 482
A. E. Housman • LOVELIEST OF TREES, THE CHERRY NOW 482
Robert Herrick • UPON JULIA’S CLOTHES 483
Sonnet 484
John Keats • ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN’S HOMER 485
William Wordsworth • THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US 486
William Shakespeare • SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A SUMMER’S DAY? 487
William Shakespeare • MY MISTRESS’ EYES ARE NOTHING LIKE THE SUN 487
Edna St. Vincent Millay • I WILL PUT CHAOS INTO FOURTEEN LINES 488
Molly Peacock • DESIRE 489
Mark Jarman • UNHOLY SONNET 489
X. J. Kennedy • “THE PURPOSE OF TIME IS TO PREVENT EVERYTHING FROM HAPPENING AT ONCE” 490
Villanelle 491
Dylan Thomas • DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT 491
Sestina 492
Florence Cassen Mayers • ALL-AMERICAN SESTINA 492
Epigram 493
Samuel Taylor Coleridge • WHAT IS AN EPIGRAM? 494
A. R. Ammons • COWARD 494
David McCord • EPITAPH ON A WAITER 494
Paul Laurence Dunbar • THEOLOGY 494
Limerick 495
Anonymous • THERE WAS A YOUNG LADY NAMED BRIGHT 495
Laurence Perrine • THE LIMERICK’S NEVER AVERSE 495
Haiku 496
Matsuo Bash–o • UNDER CHERRY TREES 496
Carolyn Kizer • AFTER BASH – O 496
Sonia Sanchez • C’MON MAN HOLD ME 496
Elegy 497
Theodore Roethke • ELEGY FOR JANE 497
Brendan Galvin • AN EVEL KNIEVEL ELEGY 498
xxviii contents
Ode 499
Percy Bysshe Shelley • ODE TO THE WEST WIND 499
Baron Wormser • LABOR 502
Parody 503
Blanche Farley • THE LOVER NOT TAKEN 503 perspective Elaine Mitchell • Form 504
Picture Poem 505
Michael McFee • IN MEDIAS RES 505
- Open Form 507 E. E. Cummings • IN JUST- 507
Walt Whitman • FROM “I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC” 508
Louis Jenkins • THE PROSE POEM 510
Galway Kinnell • AFTER MAKING LOVE WE HEAR FOOTSTEPS 511
Kelly Cherry • ALZHEIMER’S 512
William Carlos Williams • THE RED WHEELBARROW 513
Marilyn Nelson Waniek • EMILY DICKINSON’S DEFUNCT 513
Julio Marzán • THE TRANSLATOR AT THE RECEPTION FOR LATIN AMERICAN WRITERS 514
Anonymous • THE FROG 515
Julia Alvarez • QUEENS, 1963 515
Tato Laviera • AMERÍCAN 517
Peter Meinke • THE ABC OF AEROBICS 519
Found Poem 520
Donald Justice • ORDER IN THE STREETS 520
Poetry in Depth 523
- A Study of Billy Collins: The Author Refl ects on Five Poems 525 A Brief Biography and an Introduction to His Work 526
introduction: Billy Collins • “HOW DO POEMS TRAVEL?” 531
poem: Billy Collins • OSSO BUCO 532
essay: Billy Collins • ON WRITING “OSSO BUCO” 533
poem: Billy Collins • NOSTALGIA 534
essay: Billy Collins • ON WRITING “NOSTALGIA” 535
poem: Billy Collins • QUESTIONS ABOUT ANGELS 537
essay: Billy Collins • ON WRITING “QUESTIONS ABOUT ANGELS” 538
poem: Billy Collins • LITANY 539
essay: Billy Collins • ON WRITING “LITANY” 540
contents xxix
poem: Billy Collins • BUILDING WITH ITS FACE BLOWN OFF 541 perspective (interview) On “Building with Its Face Blown Off ”: Michael Meyer Interviews Billy Collins 542
facsimile: Billy Collins • DRAFT MANUSCRIPT PAGE OF “BUSY DAY” 546 suggested topics for longer papers 547 questions for writing about an author in depth 548
- A Thematic Case Study: Humor and Satire 550 Fleur Adcock • THE VIDEO 551
John Ciardi • SUBURBAN 552
Howard Nemerov • WALKING THE DOG 552
Linda Pastan • JUMP CABLING 553
Peter Schmitt • FRIENDS WITH NUMBERS 554
Martín Espada • THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE REVISES ITS CURRICULUM IN RESPONSE TO CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS 555
Thomas Lux • COMMERCIAL LEECH FARMING TODAY 555
X. J. Kennedy • ON A YOUNG MAN’S REMAINING AN UNDERGRADUATE FOR TWELVE YEARS 557
A Collection of Poems 559
- Poems for Further Reading 561 William Blake • INFANT SORROW 561
Robert Burns • A RED, RED ROSE 561
George Gordon, Lord Byron • SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY 562
Lucille Clifton • THIS MORNING (FOR THE GIRLS OF EASTERN HIGH SCHOOL) 563
Samuel Taylor Coleridge • KUBLA KHAN: OR, A VISION IN A DREAM 563
Emily Dickinson • BECAUSE I COULD NOT STOP FOR DEATH — 565
Emily Dickinson • HE FUMBLES AT YOUR SOUL 565
Emily Dickinson • I FELT A FUNERAL, IN MY BRAIN 566
Emily Dickinson • I STARTED EARLY — TOOK MY DOG — 566
Emily Dickinson • MY LIFE HAD STOOD — A LOADED GUN — 567
John Donne • THE APPARITION 568
John Donne • THE FLEA 568
T. S. Eliot • THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK 569
Robert Frost • MENDING WALL 573
Robert Frost • THE ROAD NOT TAKEN 574
Thomas Hardy • HAP 574
Gerard Manley Hopkins • PIED BEAUTY 575
A. E. Housman • TO AN ATHLETE DYING YOUNG 575
xxx contents
Langston Hughes • HARLEM 576
Ben Jonson • TO CELIA 577
John Keats • LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 577
John Keats • WRITTEN IN DISGUST OF VULGAR SUPERSTITION 579
Emma Lazarus • THE NEW COLOSSUS 579
John Milton • WHEN I CONSIDER HOW MY LIGHT IS SPENT 580
Christina Georgina Rossetti • SOME LADIES DRESS IN MUSLIN FULL AND WHITE 580
Siegfried Sassoon • “THEY” 581
William Shakespeare • THAT TIME OF YEAR THOU MAYST IN ME BEHOLD 581
William Shakespeare • WHEN, IN DISGRACE WITH FORTUNE AND MEN’S EYES 581
Percy Bysshe Shelley • OZYMANDIAS 582
Alfred, Lord Tennyson • ULYSSES 582
Alfred, Lord Tennyson • TEARS, IDLE TEARS 584
Walt Whitman • WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN’D ASTRONOMER 585
William Carlos Williams • THIS IS JUST TO SAY 585
William Wordsworth • A SLUMBER DID MY SPIRIT SEAL 586
William Wordsworth • THE SOLITARY REAPER 586
William Wordsworth • MUTABILITY 587
William Butler Yeats • LEDA AND THE SWAN 587
DR AMA 589
The Study of Drama 591
- Reading Drama 593 Reading Drama Responsively 593
Susan Glaspell • TRIFLES 595 Did Mrs. Wright kill her husband? While the men investigate, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale reach their own conclusions.
a sample close reading An Annotated Section of Susan Glaspell’s Trifles 606
Elements of Drama 607 Joan Ackermann • QUIET TORRENTIAL SOUND 612 Two sisters in their thirties order at a café: one a hot fudge sundae and a Diet Coke, the other a decaf. In short order, the conversation turns to appetites.
Drama in Popular Forms 619 Larry David • “THE PITCH,” A SEINFELD EPISODE 622 Are our lives just a series of insignifi cant, mundane events? Of episodes in which nothing happens?
contents xxxi
- Sophocles and Greek Drama 632 Theatrical Conventions of Greek Drama 633 Tragedy 636
Sophocles • OEDIPUS THE KING 639 In the greatest of the surviving Greek tragedies, a hero sets out to discover the truth about himself.
- William Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama 687 Shakespeare’s Theater 689 The Range of Shakespeare’s Drama: History, Comedy, and Tragedy 693 A Note on Reading Shakespeare 696
William Shakespeare • OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE 698 Jealousy proves to be the downfall of a Moorish general in this tragedy of love, betrayal, friendship, and race.
- Henrik Ibsen and Modern Drama 788 Realism 788 Theatrical Conventions of Modern Drama 790
Henrik Ibsen • A DOLL HOUSE 792 “Yes, whatever you say, Torvald.” Can a nineteenth-century wife break from her dominating husband?
A Collection of Plays 849
- Plays for Further Reading 851 Sharon E. Cooper • MISTAKEN IDENTITY 852 A Hindu lesbian and a clueless American go on a blind date.
David Henry Hwang • TRYING TO FIND CHINATOWN 857 “What — you think if I deny the importance of my race, I’m nobody?” Two young men have very different ideas about what makes us who we are.
Jane Martin • RODEO 864 When a closely knit community is corrupted in the name of progress and profi t, can it recover?
Jane Anderson • THE REPRIMAND 868 Mim and Rhona work through their professional power struggle. Sort of.
Nilaja Sun • NO CHILD . . . 905 When Ms. Sun arrives to direct a play with the worst class in school, her funny and frank students are more than a little skeptical.
xxxii contents
CRIT ICAL THINKING AND WRIT ING 927
- Reading and the Writing Process 929 The Purpose and Value of Writing about Literature 929 Reading the Work Closely 930 Annotating the Text and Journal Note Taking 930
Annotated Text 931
Journal Note 931
Choosing a Topic 932 Developing a Thesis 933 Arguing about Literature 934 Organizing a Paper 935 Writing a Draft 936
Writing the Introduction and Conclusion 937
Using Quotations 937
Revising and Editing 939 questions for writing: a revision checklist 939
Types of Writing Assignments 941
- Writing about Fiction 942 From Reading to Writing 942
questions for responsive reading and writing 943 Analysis 945
a sample student analysis John Updike’s “A&P” as a State of Mind 945
- Writing about Poetry 950 From Reading to Writing 950
questions for responsive reading and writing 951
Explication 952
A Sample Paper-in-Progress 953 Mapping a Poem 953
John Donne • DEATH BE NOT PROUD 954
Asking Questions about the Elements 954 a sample fi rst response First Response to John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” 954
Organizing Your Thoughts 955 a sample informal outline Proposed Outline for Paper on John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” 956
contents xxxiii
The Elements and Theme 957 fi nal paper: a sample explication The Use of Conventional Metaphors for Death in John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” 957
A Sample Student Explication 961 A Reading of Emily Dickinson’s “There’s a certain Slant of light” 961
Emily Dickinson • THERE’S A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT 961
- Writing about Drama 965 From Reading to Writing 965
questions for responsive reading and writing 966 Comparison and Contrast 968
- The Literary Research Paper 973 Choosing a Topic 974 Finding Sources 975
Electronic Sources 975
Evaluating Sources and Taking Notes 976 Developing a Thesis and Organizing the Paper 977 Revising 978 Documenting Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism 978
The List of Works Cited 980 Parenthetical References 985
a sample student research paper How William Faulkner’s Narrator Cultivates a Rose for Emily 986
Glossary of Literary Terms 991
Index of First Lines 1019
Index of Authors and Titles 1023
Index of Terms 1034
This page intentionally left blank
1
THE NATURE OF LITER ATURE Literature does not lend itself to a single tidy definition because the mak- ing of it over the centuries has been as complex, unwieldy, and natural as life itself. Is literature everything that has been written, from ancient prayers to graffiti? Does it include songs and stories that were not written down until many years after they were recited? Does literature include the television scripts from Seinfeld as well as Shakespeare’s King Lear? Is litera- ture only writing that has permanent value and continues to move people? Must literature be true or beautiful or moral? Should it be socially useful? Although these kinds of questions are not conclusively answered in this book, they are implicitly raised by the stories, poems, and plays included here. No definition of literature, particularly a brief one, is likely to satisfy everyone because definitions tend to weaken and require qualification when confronted by the uniqueness of individual works. In this context it is worth recalling Herman Melville’s humorous use of a definition of a whale in Moby-Dick (1851). In the course of the novel, Mel- ville presents his imaginative and symbolic whale as inscrutable, but he begins with a quota tion from Georges Cuvier, a French naturalist who defines a whale in his nineteenth-century study The Animal Kingdom this
INTRODUCTION
Reading Imaginative Literature
© Jerry Bauer.
Literature has been the salvation of the damned; literature has inspired and guided lovers, routed despair, and can perhaps . . . save the world.
— JOHN CHEEVER
2 reading imaginative literature
way: “The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet.” Cuvier’s description is technically correct, of course, but there is little wisdom in it. Melville under stood that the reality of the whale (which he describes as the “un graspable phantom of life”) cannot be caught by isolated facts. If the full meaning of the whale is to be understood, it must be sought on the open sea of experience, where the whale itself is, rather than in exclusionary definitions. Facts and definitions are helpful; however, they do not always reveal the whole truth. Despite Melville’s reminder that a definition can be too limiting and even comical, it is useful for our purposes to describe literature as a fiction consisting of carefully arranged words designed to stir the imagination. Stories, poems, and plays are fictional. They are made up — imagined — even when based on actual historic events. Such imaginative writing differs from other kinds of writing because its purpose is not primarily to transmit facts or ideas. Imaginative literature is a source more of pleasure than of infor- mation, and we read it for basically the same reasons we listen to music or view a dance: enjoyment, delight, and satisfaction. Like other art forms, imaginative literature offers pleasure and usually attempts to convey a perspective, mood, feeling, or experience. Writers transform the facts the world provides — people, places, and objects — into experiences that suggest meanings. Consider, for example, the difference between the following factual de scription of a snake and a poem on the same subject. Here is Webster’s Eleventh New Collegiate Dictionary’s definition:
any of numerous limbless scaled reptiles (suborder Serpentes syn. Ophidia) with a long tapering body and with salivary glands often modified to produce venom which is injected through grooved or tubular fangs.
Contrast this matter-of-fact definition with Emily Dickinson’s poetic evocation of a snake in “A narrow Fellow in the Grass”:
A narrow Fellow in the Grass Occasionally rides — You may have met Him — did you not His notice sudden is —
The Grass divides as with a Comb — 5 A spotted shaft is seen — And then it closes at your feet And opens further on —
He likes a Boggy Acre A floor too cool for Corn — 10 Yet when a Boy, and Barefoot — I more than once at Noon
Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash Unbraiding in the Sun
the value of literature 3
When stooping to secure it 15 It wrinkled, and was gone —
Several of Nature’s People I know, and they know me — I feel for them a transport Of cordiality — 20
But never met this Fellow Attended, or alone Without a tighter breathing And Zero at the Bone —
The dictionary provides a succinct, anatomical description of what a snake is, while Dickinson’s poem suggests what a snake can mean. The defi nition offers facts; the poem offers an experience. The dictionary would probably allow someone who had never seen a snake to sketch one with reasonable accuracy. The poem also provides some vivid subjec- tive descriptions — for example, the snake dividing the grass “as with a Comb” — yet it offers more than a picture of serpentine movements. The poem conveys the ambivalence many people have about snakes — the kind of feeling, for example, so evident on the faces of visitors viewing the snakes at a zoo. In the poem there is both a fascination with and a horror of what might be called snakehood; this combination of feelings has been coiled in most of us since Adam and Eve. A good deal more could be said about the numbing fear that under- cuts the affection for nature at the beginning of this poem, but the point here is that imaginative literature gives us not so much the full, fac- tual proportions of the world as some of its experiences and meanings. Instead of de fining the world, literature encourages us to try it out in our imaginations.
THE VALUE OF LITER ATURE Mark Twain once shrewdly observed that a person who chooses not to read has no advantage over a person who is unable to read. In industri- alized societies today, however, the question is not who reads, because nearly everyone can and does, but what is read. Why should anyone spend precious time with literature when there is so much reading material available that provides useful information about everything from the daily news to personal computers? Why should a literary art- ist’s imagination compete for attention that could be spent on the firm realities that constitute everyday life? In fact, national best-seller lists much less often include collections of stories, poems, or plays than they do cookbooks and, not surprisingly, diet books. Although such fare may be filling, it doesn’t stay with you. Most people have other appetites too.
4 reading imaginative literature
Certainly one of the most important values of literature is that it nourishes our emotional lives. An effective literary work may seem to speak directly to us, especially if we are ripe for it. The inner life that good writers reveal in their characters often gives us glimpses of some portion of ourselves. We can be moved to laugh, cry, tremble, dream, ponder, shriek, or rage with a character by simply turning a page instead of turning our lives upside down. Although the experience itself is imag- ined, the emotion is real. That’s why the final chapters of a good adven- ture novel can make a reader’s heart race as much as a 100-yard dash or why the repressed love of Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is painful to a sympathetic reader. Human emotions speak a universal language regardless of when or where a work was written. In addition to appealing to our emotions, literature broadens our perspectives on the world. Most of the people we meet are pretty much like ourselves, and what we can see of the world even in a lifetime is astonishingly limited. Literature allows us to move beyond the inevitable boundaries of our own lives and culture because it introduces us to people different from ourselves, places remote from our neighborhoods, and times other than our own. Reading makes us more aware of life’s possibilities as well as its subtleties and ambiguities. Put simply, people who read literature experience more life and have a keener sense of a common human identity than those who do not. It is true, of course, that many people go through life without reading imaginative literature, but that is a loss rather than a gain. They may find themselves troubled by the same kinds of questions that reveal Daisy Buchanan’s restless, vague discontentment in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: “What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon?” cried Daisy, “and the day after that, and the next thirty years?” Sometimes students mistakenly associate literature more with school than with life. Accustomed to reading it in order to write a paper or pass an examination, students may perceive such reading as a chore instead of a pleasurable opportunity, something considerably less important than studying for the “practical” courses that prepare them for a career. The study of literature, however, is also practical because it engages you in the kinds of problem solving important in a variety of fields, from phi- losophy to science and technology. The interpretation of literary texts requires you to deal with uncertainties, value judgments, and emotions; these are unavoidable aspects of life. People who make the most significant contributions to their profes- sions — whether in business, engineering, teaching, or some other area — tend to be challenged rather than threatened by multiple possibilities. Instead of retreating to the way things have always been done, they bring freshness and creativity to their work. F. Scott Fitzgerald once astutely described the “test of a first-rate intelligence” as “the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” People with such intelligence know how to read situations,
the changing literary canon 5
shape questions, interpret details, and evaluate competing points of view. Equipped with a healthy respect for facts, they also understand the value of pursuing hunches and exercising their imaginations. Reading literature encourages a suppleness of mind that is helpful in any discipline or work. Once the requirements for your degree are completed, what ultimately matters are not the courses listed on your transcript but the sensibili- ties and habits of mind that you bring to your work, friends, family, and, indeed, the rest of your life. A healthy economy changes and grows with the times; people do too if they are prepared for more than simply filling a job description. The range and variety of life that literature affords can help you to interpret your own experiences and the world in which you live. To discover the insights that literature reveals requires careful reading and sensitivity. One of the purposes of a college introduction to literature class is to cultivate the analytic skills necessary for reading well. Class discussions often help establish a dialogue with a work that perhaps otherwise would not speak to you. Analytic skills can also be developed by writing about what you read. Writing is an effective means of clarifying your responses and ideas because it requires you to account for the author’s use of language as well as your own. This book is based on two premises: that reading literature is pleasurable and that reading and understanding a work sensitively by thinking, talking, or writing about it increases the pleasure of the experience of it. Understanding its basic elements — such as point of view, symbol, theme, tone, irony, and so on — is a prerequisite to an informed appre- ciation of literature. This kind of understanding allows you to perceive more in a literary work in much the same way that a spectator at a ten- nis match sees more if he or she understands the rules and conventions of the game. But literature is not simply a spectator sport. The analytic skills that open up literature also have their uses when you watch a tele- vision program or film and, more important, when you attempt to sort out the significance of the people, places, and events that constitute your own life. Literature enhances and sharpens your perceptions. What could be more lastingly practical as well as satisfying?
THE CHANGING LITER ARY CANON Perhaps the best reading creates some kind of change in us: We see more clearly; we’re alert to nuances; we ask questions that previously didn’t occur to us. Henry David Thoreau had that sort of reading in mind when he remarked in Walden that the books he valued most were those that caused him to date “a new era in his life from the reading.” Readers are sometimes changed by literature, but it is also worth noting that the life of a literary work can also be affected by its readers. Melville’s Moby-Dick, for example, was not valued as a classic until the 1920s, when critics res- cued the novel from the obscurity of being cataloged in many libraries
6 reading imaginative literature
(including Yale’s) not under fiction but under cetology, the study of whales. In deed, many writers contemporary to Melville who were impor- tant and popular in the nineteenth century — William Cullen Bryant, Henry Wads worth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell, to name a few — are now mostly unread; their names appear more often on elemen- tary schools built early in this century than in anthologies. Clearly, liter- ary reputations and what is valued as great literature change over time and in the eyes of readers. Such changes have steadily accelerated as the literary canon — those works considered by scholars, critics, and teachers to be the most impor- tant to read and study — has undergone a significant series of shifts. Writers who previously were overlooked, undervalued, neglected, or stu- diously ignored have been brought into focus in an effort to create a more diverse literary canon, one that recognizes the contributions of the many cultures that make up American society. Since the 1960s, for example, some critics have reassessed writings by women who had been left out of the standard literary traditions dominated by male writers. Many more female writers are now read alongside the male writers who traditionally populated literary history. Hence, a reader of Mark Twain and Stephen Crane is now just as likely to encounter Kate Chopin in a literary anthol- ogy. Until fairly recently, Chopin was mostly regarded as a minor local colorist of Louisiana life. In the 1960s, however, the feminist movement helped to establish her present reputation as a significant voice in Ameri- can literature owing to the feminist concerns so compellingly artic ulated by her female characters. This kind of enlargement of the canon also resulted from another reform movement of the 1960s. The civil rights movement sensitized literary critics to the political, moral, and aesthetic necessity of rediscovering African American literature, and more recently Asian and Hispanic writers have been making their way into the canon. Moreover, on a broader scale the canon is being revised and enlarged to include the works of writers from parts of the world other than the West, a development that reflects the changing values, concerns, and complexi- ties of recent decades, when literary landscapes have shifted as dramati- cally as the political boundaries of much of the world.
No semester’s reading list — or anthology — can adequately or accurately echo all the new voices competing to be heard as part of the mainstream literary canon, but recent efforts to open up the canon attempt to sensi- tize readers to the voices of women, minorities, and writers from all over the world. This development has not occurred without its urgent advo- cates or passionate dissenters. It’s no surprise that issues about race, gen- der, and class often get people off the fence and on their feet. Al though what we regard as literature — whether it’s called great, classic, or canoni- cal — continues to generate debate, there is no question that such con- troversy will continue to reflect readers’ values as well as the writers they admire.
F I C T I O N
This page intentionally left blank
9
- Reading Fiction 11
- Plot 44
- Character 64
- Setting 115
- Point of View 135
- Symbolism 178
- Theme 199
- Style, Tone, and Irony 223
The Elements of Fiction
9
This page intentionally left blank
READING FICT ION RESPONSIVELY Reading a literary work responsively can be an intensely demanding activity. Henry David Thoreau — about as intense and demanding a reader and writer as they come — insists that “books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.” Thoreau is right about the necessity for a conscious, sustained involvement with a literary work. Imaginative literature does demand more from us than, say, browsing through People magazine in a dentist’s waiting room, but Thoreau makes the process sound a little more daunting than it really is. For when we respond to the demands of responsive reading, our efforts are usually rewarded with pleasure as well as understanding. Careful, deliberate reading — the kind that engages a reader’s imagination as it calls forth the writer’s — is a means of exploration that can take a reader outside whatever circumstance or experience previously defi ned his or her world. Just as we respond moment by moment to people and situations in our lives, we also respond to literary works as we read them, though we may
11
1 Reading Fiction
To seek the source, the impulse of a story is like tearing a fl ower to pieces for wantonness.
— KATE CHOPIN
What we do might be done in solitude and with great desperation, but it tends to produce exactly the opposite. It tends to produce community and in many people hope and joy.
— JUNOT DÍAZ © Scott Lituchy/Star Ledger/ corbis.
Brought to you by LibraryPirate… 12 reading fiction
not be fully aware of how we are affected at each point along the way. The more conscious we are of how and why we respond to works in par- ticular ways, the more likely we are to be imaginatively engaged in our reading. In a very real sense both the reader and the author create the liter- ary work. How a reader responds to a story, poem, or play will help to determine its meaning. The author arranges the various elements that constitute his or her craft — elements such as plot, character, setting, point of view, symbolism, theme, and style, which you will be examin- ing in subsequent chapters — but the author cannot completely control the reader’s response any more than a person can absolutely predict how a remark or action will be received by a stranger, a friend, or even a family member. Few authors tell readers how to respond. Our sympa- thy, anger, confusion, laughter, sadness, or whatever the feeling might be is left up to us to experience. Writers may have the talent to evoke such feelings, but they don’t have the power and authority to enforce them. Because of the range of possible responses produced by imagina- tive literature, there is no single, correct, defi nitive response or inter- pretation. There can be readings that are wrongheaded or foolish, and some readings are better than others — that is, more responsive to a work’s details and more persuasive — but that doesn’t mean there is only one possible reading of a work. Experience tells us that different people respond differently to the same work. Consider, for example, how often you’ve heard Melville’s Moby-Dick described as one of the greatest American novels. This, how- ever, is how a reviewer in New Monthly Magazine described the book when it was published in 1851: It is “a huge dose of hyperbolical slang, maudlin sentimentalism and tragic-comic bubble and squeak.” Melville surely did not intend or desire this response; but there it is, and it was not a singu- lar, isolated reaction. This reading — like any reading — was infl uenced by the values, assumptions, and expectations that the readers brought to the novel from both previous readings and life experiences. The reviewer’s refusal to take the book seriously may have caused him to miss the boat from the perspective of many other readers of Moby-Dick, but it indicates that even “classics” (perhaps especially those kinds of works) can generate disparate readings. Consider the following brief story by Kate Cho- pin, a writer whose fi ction (like Melville’s) sometimes met with indifference or hostility in her own time. As you read, keep track of your responses to the cen- tral character, Mrs. Mallard. Write down your feelings about her in a substantial paragraph when you fi nish the story. Think, for example, about how you respond to the emotions she expresses concerning news of her husband’s death. What do you think of her feelings about mar- riage? Do you think you would react the way she does under similar circumstances?
WEB Explore contexts for Kate Chopin and approaches to this story at bedfordstmartins.com/ rewritinglit.
chopin / the story of an hour 13
Kate Chopin (1851–1904)
The Story of an Hour 1894
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was affl icted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death. It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper offi ce when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of “killed.” He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message. She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its signifi cance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy arm- chair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul. She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window. She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams. She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fi xed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of refl ection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought. There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that fi lled the air. Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was
5
10
14 reading fiction
striving to beat it back with her will — as powerless as her two white slen- der hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body. She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the sug- gestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fi xed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome. There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination. And yet she had loved him — sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being! “Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering. Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. “Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door — you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.” “Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window. Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long. She arose at length and opened the door to her sister’s importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwit- tingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister’s waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom. Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip- sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s pierc- ing cry; at Richards’ quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife. But Richards was too late.
15
20
chopin / the story of an hour 15
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease — of joy that kills.
A SAMPLE CLOSE READING An Annotated Section of “The Story of an Hour”
Even as you read a story for the fi rst time, you can highlight passages, circle or underline words, and write responses in the margins. Subse- quent readings will yield more insights once you begin to understand how various elements such as plot, characterization, and wording build toward the conclusion and what you perceive to be the story’s central ideas. The following annotations for the fi rst eleven paragraphs of “The Story of an Hour” provide a perspective written by someone who had read the work several times. Your own approach might, of course, be quite different — as the sample paper that follows the annotated passage amply demonstrates.
Kate Chopin (1851–1904)
The Story of an Hour 1894
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was affl icted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death. It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper offi ce when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of “killed.” He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message. She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its signifi cance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild aban- donment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. There stood, facing the open window, a comfort- able, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
The title could point to the brevity of the story — only 23 short paragraphs — or to the decisive nature of what happens in a very short period of time. Or both.
Mrs. Mallard’s fi rst name (Louise) is not given until para- graph 17, yet her sister Josephine is named immediately. This emphasizes Mrs. Mallard’s married identity.
Given the nature of the cause of Mrs. Mallard’s death at the story’s end, it’s worth noting the ambiguous description that she “was affl icted with a heart trouble.” Is this one of Chopin’s (rather than Jose- phine’s) “veiled hints”?
When Mrs. Mallard weeps with “wild abandonment,” the reader is again confronted with an ambiguous phrase: she grieves in an overwhelming manner yet seems to express relief at being abandoned by Brently’s death.
16 reading fiction
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a dis- tant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window. She sat with her head thrown back upon the cush- ion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams. She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fi xed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of refl ection, but rather indicated a sus- pension of intelligent thought. There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that fi lled the air. Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will — as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body. . . .
Do you fi nd Mrs. Mallard a sympathetic character? Some readers think that she is callous, selfi sh, and unnatural — even monstrous — because she ecstatically revels in her newly discovered sense of freedom so soon after learning of her husband’s presumed death. Others read her as a victim of her inability to control her own life in a repressive, male- dominated society. Is it possible to hold both views simultaneously, or are they mutually exclusive? Are your views in any way infl uenced by your being male or female? Does your age affect your perception? What
These 3 paragraphs create an increas- ingly “open” atmosphere that leads to the “delicious” outside where there are inviting sounds and “patches of blue sky.” There’s a defi nite tension between the inside and outside worlds.
Though still stunned by grief, Mrs. Mallard begins to feel a change come over her owing to her growing awareness of a world outside her room.
What that change is remains “too subtle and elusive to name.”
Mrs. Mallard’s confl icted struggle is described in pas- sionate, physical terms as if she is “possess[ed]” by a lover she is “powerless” to resist.
Once she has “aban- doned” herself (see the “abandonment” in paragraph 3), the reader realizes that her love is to be “free, free, free.” Her recognition is evident in the “coursing blood [that] warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.”
5
10
Brought to you by LibraryPirate… chopin / the story of an hour 17
about your social and economic background? Does your nationality, race, or religion in any way shape your attitudes? Do you have particular views about the institution of marriage that inform your assessment of Mrs. Mallard’s character? Have other reading experiences — perhaps a familiarity with some of Chopin’s other stories — predisposed you one way or another to Mrs. Mallard? Understanding potential infl uences might be useful in determin- ing whether a particular response to Mrs. Mallard is based primarily on the story’s details and their arrangement or on an overt or a subtle bias that is brought to the story. If you unconsciously project your beliefs and assumptions onto a literary work, you run the risk of distorting it to accommodate your prejudice. Your feelings can be a reliable guide to interpretation, but you should be aware of what those feelings are based on. Often specifi c questions about literary works cannot be answered defi nitively. For example, Chopin does not explain why Mrs. Mallard suffers a heart attack at the end of this story. Is the shock of seeing her “dead” husband simply too much for this woman “affl icted with a heart trouble”? Does she die of what the doctors call a “joy that kills” because she is so glad to see her husband? Is she so profoundly guilty about feeling “free” at her husband’s expense that she has a heart attack? Is her death a kind of willed suicide in reaction to her loss of freedom? Your answers to these questions will depend on which details you emphasize in your interpretation of the story and the kinds of perspectives and values you bring to it. If, for example, you read the story from a feminist perspective, you would be likely to pay close attention to Chopin’s comments about marriage in paragraph 14. Or if you read the story as an oblique attack on the insensitivity of physicians of the period, you might want to fi nd out whether Chopin
WEB
more help with close reading Close readings of Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” and Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” are available at Re:Writing for Litera- ture (www.bedfordstmartins.com/ rewritinglit). Each story is annotated with critical interpretations and explanations of the literary elements at work.
www.bedfordstmartins.com/rewritinglit
www.bedfordstmartins.com/rewritinglit
18 reading fiction
wrote elsewhere about doctors (she did) and compare her comments with historic sources. Reading responsively makes you an active participant in the pro- cess of creating meaning in a literary work. The experience that you and the author create will most likely not be identical to another reader’s encounter with the same work, but then that’s true of nearly any experi- ence you’ll have, and it is part of the pleasure of reading. Indeed, talking and writing about literature is a way of sharing responses so that they can be enriched and deepened.
A SAMPLE STUDENT PAPER Differences in Responses to Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”
The paper on the next page was written in response to an assignment that called for a three- to four-page discussion of how different readers might interpret Mrs. Mallard’s character.
a sample student paper 19
Villa 1
Wally Villa
Professor Brian
English 210
March 12, 2010
Differences in Responses to
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour”
Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” appears merely to explore a woman’s
unpredictable reaction to her husband’s assumed death and reappearance, but
actually Chopin offers Mrs. Mallard’s bizarre story to reveal problems that are
inherent in the institution of marriage. By offering this depiction of a marriage
that stifles the woman to the point that she celebrates the death of her kind
and loving husband, Chopin challenges her readers to examine their own views
of marriage and relationships between men and women. Each reader’s judgment
of Mrs. Mallard and her behavior inevitably stems from his or her own personal
feelings about marriage and the influences of societal expectations. Readers
of differing genders, ages, and marital experiences are, therefore, likely to
react differently to Chopin’s startling portrayal of the Mallards’ marriage, and
that certainly is true of my response to the story compared to my father’s and
grandmother’s responses.
Marriage often establishes boundaries between people that make them
unable to communicate with each other. The Mallards’ marriage was evidently
crippled by both their inability to talk to one another and Mrs. Mallard’s
conviction that her marriage was defined by a “powerful will bending hers in
that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to
impose a private will upon a fellow-creature” (14). Yet she does not recognize
that it is not just men who impose their will upon women and that the problems
inherent in marriage affect men and women equally. To me, Mrs. Mallard is
a somewhat sympathetic character, and I appreciate her longing to live out
the “years to come that would belong to her absolutely” (14). However, I also
believe that she could have tried to improve her own situation somehow, either
by reaching out to her husband or by abandoning the marriage altogether.
Chopin uses Mrs. Mallard’s tragedy to illuminate aspects of marriage that are
harmful and, in this case, even deadly. Perhaps the Mallards’ relationship should
be taken as a warning to others: sacrificing one’s own happiness in order to
satisfy societal expectations can poison one’s life and even destroy entire
families.
Thesis providing writer’s interpreta- tion of story’s purpose
Introduction setting up other reader responses discussed later in paper
Analysis of story’s portrayal of marriage, with textual evidence
Analysis of character and plot, connecting with story’s purpose
20 reading fiction
Villa 2
When my father read “The Story of an Hour,” his reaction to Mrs. Mallard
was more antagonistic than my own. He sees Chopin’s story as a timeless
“battle of the sexes,” serving as further proof that men will never really be able
to understand what it is that women want. Mrs. Mallard endures an obviously
unsatisfying marriage without ever explaining to her husband that she feels
trapped and unfulfilled. Mrs. Mallard dismisses the question of whether or
not she is experiencing a “monstrous joy” (14) as trivial, but my father does
not think that this is a trivial question. He believes Mrs. Mallard is guilty of a
monstrous joy because she selfishly celebrates the death of her husband without
ever having allowed him the opportunity to understand her feelings. He believes
that, above all, Brently Mallard should be seen as the most victimized character
in the story. Mr. Mallard is a good, kind man, with friends who care about him
and a marriage that he thinks he can depend on. He “never looked save with
love” (14) upon his wife, his only “crime” (14) was his presence in the house,
and yet he is the one who is bereaved at the end of the story, for reasons he
will never understand. Mrs. Mallard’s passion for her newly discovered freedom is
perhaps understandable, but according to my father, Mr. Mallard is the character
most deserving of sympathy.
Maybe not surprisingly, my grandmother’s interpretation of “The Story
of an Hour” was radically different from both mine and my father’s. My
grandmother was married in 1936 and widowed in 1959 and therefore can
identify with Chopin’s characters, who live at the turn of the century. Her
first reaction, aside from her unwavering support for Mrs. Mallard and her
predicament, was that this story demonstrates the differences between the ways
men and women related to each other a century ago and the way they relate
today. Unlike my father, who thinks Mrs. Mallard is too passive, my grandmother
believes that Mrs. Mallard doesn’t even know that she is feeling repressed until
after she is told that Brently is dead. In 1894, divorce was so scandalous and
stigmatized that it simply wouldn’t have been an option for Mrs. Mallard, and
so her only way out of the marriage would have been one of their deaths. Being
relatively young, Mrs. Mallard probably considered herself doomed to a long
life in an unhappy marriage. My grandmother also feels that, in spite of all we
know of Mrs. Mallard’s feelings about her husband and her marriage, she still
manages to live up to everyone’s expectations of her as a woman both in life
and in death. She is a dutiful wife to Brently, as she is expected to be. She
weeps “with sudden, wild abandonment” when she hears the news of his death;
Contrasting summary and analysis of another reader’s response
Contrasting summary and analysis of another reader’s response
Cultural and historical background providing context for response and story itself
Analysis supported with textual evidence
a sample student paper 21
Villa 3
she locks herself in her room to cope with her new situation, and she has a fatal
heart attack upon seeing her husband arrive home. Naturally the male doctors
would think that she died of the “joy that kills” (15)—nobody could have
guessed that she was unhappy with her life, and she would never have wanted
them to know.
Interpretations of “The Story of an Hour” seem to vary according to the
gender, age, and experience of the reader. While both male and female readers
can certainly sympathize with Mrs. Mallard’s plight, female readers—as was
evident in our class discussions—seem to relate more easily to her predicament
and are quicker to exonerate her of any responsibility for her unhappy situation.
Conversely, male readers are more likely to feel compassion for Mr. Mallard,
who loses his wife for reasons that will always remain entirely unknown to him.
Older readers probably understand more readily the strength of social forces
and the difficulty of trying to deny societal expectations concerning gender
roles in general and marriage in particular. Younger readers seem to feel that
Mrs. Mallard is too passive and that she could have improved her domestic
life immeasurably if she had taken the initiative to either improve or end her
relationship with her husband. Ultimately, how each individual reader responds
to Mrs. Mallard’s story reveals his or her own ideas about marriage, society, and
how men and women communicate with each other.
Villa 4
The post Examine “Shall do comparison Thee To A Summer Day” In A Literary Concept. Page 478 appeared first on graduatepaperhelp.
"Looking for a Similar Assignment? Get Expert Help at an Amazing Discount!"
We are a leading academic writing company, which has been providing exclusive writing services for years.